INDUSTRIAL AND ORGANISATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY | RESEARCHARTICLE

The effect of proactive and preventive copingstyles on personal and organizational outcomes:Be proactive if you want good outcomesÖnder Ersen1 and Reyhan Bilgiç1*

Abstract: The purpose of the present study is to examine the relationship betweenproactive and preventive coping styles and some individual and organizational out-comes, namely, job satisfaction, task performance, and organizational citizenshipbehavior. Psychometric qualities of the scales were established through a pilot study bycollecting data from 90 employees selected from different sectors. More data werecollected from additional 125 employees. Altogether, 215 employees participated inthe present study. Of the participants, 114 were women (53%) and 101 were men(47%). Results showed that proactive coping skills predicted organizational outcomespositively (i.e. job performance, job satisfaction, and organizational citizenship beha-vior). Preventive coping style did not predict any of the outcomes. Results were dis-cussed and implications for the managers were mentioned. Some future researchthemes were suggested, and limitations of the study were listed.

Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Psychological Science; Work & Organizational Psychology;Stress and Emotion in the Workplace

Keywords: job satisfaction; task performance; OCB; proactive coping; preventive coping

ABOUT THE AUTHORSReyhan Bilgiç received PhD from the IllinoisInstitute of Technology in Industrial andOrganizational Psychology and currently workingat the Psychology Department of Middle EastTechnical University, Ankara, Turkey. She super-vised many masters and PhD theses in Industrialand Organizational Psychology. Research inter-ests are stress at work, job satisfaction and workengagement, recruitment and personnel selec-tion, personality at work, and psychometricissues. She has published articles nationally andinternationally.

Önder Ersen completed his Master’s thesisunder the supervision of Reyhan Bilgiç from theDepartment of Psychology at the Middle EastTechnical University, Ankara Turkey, in 2014. Hehas joined the work force of human resourcesemployees of FMCG firms in İstanbul, Turkey. He,currently, conducts organizational development(OD) and effectiveness activities by designing HRsystems and procedures.

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENTStress experienced at work has consequences forboth individuals and organizations. For individuals,the consequences are most of the time healthrelated such as burnout, work family conflict, joband life satisfaction, and subjective well-being.The European Agency for Safety and Health atWork indicated that stress is one of the mostinfluential health problems affecting 22% ofworkers from the 27 European Union Countries. Iforganizations cannot do anything to reduce thestress experienced at work, it is important thatindividuals do something about it. Although thereare many stress reduction programs available,styles of individuals seem to be important to dealwith the stress. Studies showed that there aredifferent coping styles such as proactive and pre-ventive. This particular study showed that havingproactive coping style has positive consequencesfor both individuals and organizations such asperformance and job satisfaction. Therefore it ispublic interest to have people adopt proactivecoping style.

Ersen & Bilgiç, Cogent Psychology (2018), 5: 1492865https://doi.org/10.1080/23311908.2018.1492865

© 2018 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative CommonsAttribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.

Received: 12 February 2018Accepted: 04 June 2018First Published: 04 July 2018

*Corresponding author: Reyhan Bilgiç,Department of Psychology, Middle EastTechnical University, TurkeyE-mail: rey@metu.edu.tr

Reviewing editor:Gabriela Topa, Universidad Nacionalde Educacion a Distancia, Spain

Additional information is available atthe end of the article

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The Effect of Proactive and Preventive Coping Styles on Personal and Organizational Outcomes: BeProactive If You Want Good Outcomes

Stress has been one of the focuses of studies in psychology because of its negative impact onpeople and their health. Cartwright and Cooper (1997) underlined the detrimental effects of stressthat it can lead to many problems like emotional distress, stomach disorder, headaches, sleep-lessness, loss of energy, and so on. Moreover, in the long term, it can be more serious illnesses suchas high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease (Theorell & Karasek, 1996).

Additionally, the negative effect of stress is also a critical factor in organizations. TheEuropean Agency for Safety and Health at Work indicated that stress is one of the mostinfluential health problem affecting 22% of workers from the 27 European Union countries in2005 and issued that stress is a factor in 50% to 60% of all lost working day (Milczarek, Rial-González, & Schneider, 2009). Time pressure, excessive work demands, role conflict, roleambiguity, and ergonomic insufficiencies are among the factors leading the employees tosuffer from stress and in turn, there will be a decrease in work performance in terms ofquantity, quality, and creativity (Cohen & Williamson, 1991). Moreover, Nawaz, Mohsan, andKhan (2011) point out that the relationship is mediated by job satisfaction. Additionally,Elovainio, Kivim Ä Ki, and Vahtera (2002) suggested that stress is a threatening factor fororganizational performance and Meneze (2005) also stressed its negative influence onemployees’ performance by leading low productivity and job satisfaction, the increment inabsenteeism and other problems like alcoholism, hypertension, and cardiovascular problems.

Since stress leads to an imbalance in the body and has negative influence on employeeperformance, therefore, for the organizations; the organizations and individuals must try toadopt ways on how to face stress as they would like to eliminate or alleviate it. Coping isone of the strategies that alleviate the effect of stress as Mostert and Joubert (2005)described coping as the attempts of individuals to block, decrease, or eliminate negativeeffects.

Due to its importance, coping and the way people cope with stress issues have been studied byresearchers (Greenglass, Schwarzer, Jakubiec, Fiksenbaum, & Taubert, 1999; Lazarus & Folkman,1984; Mostert & Joubert, 2005; Skinner & Zimmmer-Gembeck, 2007).

1. Research on proactive and preventive copingWhile traditional stress research tends to emphasize the things that we can do when we getstressed, latest coping research focuses on taking actions that can be taken before stressfulevents occur. This became materialized especially after the new conceptualization of copingdue to the influence of positive psychology movement (Peiro, 2007) and now it involvespersonal growth and self-regulated goal attainment strategies (Schwarzer & Knoll, 2003).Therefore, a new conceptualization of coping has been proposed by Schwarzer and Taubert(2002) as proactive and preventive coping which focus on a proactive, goal-oriented, andadaptive way of coping, as traditional coping models focuses on the reactive nature ofcoping only for the past and current stressors. However, proactive and preventive copingdeal with anticipated, possible stressful situations which have not occurred yet. Therefore,these are future-oriented motivational higher order concepts. While proactive coping isdefined as an individual’s efforts to go after achieving new challenges, create new opportu-nities, and enable promotion toward challenging goals; preventive coping is defined as theprocess where an individual construct resources and resistance toward the possible occur-rence of stress in the distant future. Therefore the main purpose of preventive coping is justto be on the safe side while in proactive coping, is to further the situation to developopportunities to grow and at the same time to be on the safe side.

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Knowing that stress factor is one of the most influential elements affecting employee’s well-being and have a large impact on organizational outcomes, the way of coping as a motivationalstyle of individuals was considered in the present study. Furthermore, the effect of this factor on itsoutcomes and explanatory mechanisms were examined. Therefore, the present study aims toexplore the influence of proactive and preventive coping styles on the outcomes as job satisfac-tion, organizational citizenship behavior, job performance.

There exist different definitions of proactive coping in the literature because of limited studiessince it is a newly studied topic of positive psychology. Among the differences referring toproactive coping, this study focuses on the definition of proactive coping as the strategies thatare directed to construct general resources that facilitate promotion toward challenging goals andpersonal growth. The preventive coping was defined as the efforts to prepare potential arisingsituations to detect and prevent possible stressors in order to minimize the severity of theseevents. Therefore, in this study, proactive and preventive coping will refer to their unique, particulardefinition as suggested by Schwarzer and Taubert (2002).

Schwarzer and Taubert (2002) pointed out that, proactive and preventive coping differ in threeways. First of all, the two coping strategies have different points in terms of motivations. Whileproactive coping is based on challenge appraisal, preventive coping comes from harmful evalua-tions (Schwarzer & Taubert, 2002). Second, people take more constitutive and intentional actionsin proactive coping (Greenglass et al., 1999), but in preventive coping, individuals build up moredefensive and general strategies to save resources for future needs.

According to Schwarzer and Taubert (2002) while proactive coping is goal management, pre-ventive coping is risk management. Risk management is defined as the activities including pre-venting and minimizing the occurrence of situations that is perceived as threatening. It focuses onhow the negative effects of situation risk are managed (Dănciulescu, 2013). Goal management, onthe other hand, is defined as the ability of a person to be able to control and regulate himself/herself in an effective way toward the achievement of what makes the individual happy andsatisfied (Opayemi & Balogun, 2011). According to Heckhausen and Kuhl (1985), the main focusof goal management includes efforts through commitment and self-control which was defined asthe ability to control one’s impulses (Hagger, Wood, Stiff, & Chatzisarantis, 2010) in achieving aparticular goal.

Schwarzer and Taubert (2002) characterized preventive coping as a kind of risk managementbecause, in here, individuals have to manage different ambiguous risks in the long run and referredproactive coping as a goal management instead of risk management because in proactive coping,individuals are proactive in the sense that they start a purposeful way while taking action andcreate opportunities for personal development. Proactive individuals are motivated to face chal-lenges and they try to achieve personal quality standards. The third difference specified by them isthe level of worry discrepancy between preventive and proactive coping. While worry levels arehigher in the former, it is lower in the latter.

The individuals high in proactive coping have that capacity to change the situation which maynot exist yet toward a more desirable environment and have the motivation (Parker, Bindl, &Strauss, 2010) since they focus to create opportunities for growth, take purposeful and construc-tive actions for this purpose (Locke, 2005) and have high self-esteem and high self-efficacy(Schwarzer & Taubert, 2002; Veresova & Mala, 2012). However, individuals high in preventivecoping build up general resistance resources, saving time, money, social bonds and skills just incase of necessity. They would like to change the situation only if they appraise the upcomingsituation as a potential threat to them (Schwarzer & Taubert, 2002; Veresova, 2013). Whileproactive coping is associated with the positive effect, satisfaction with life positively, use ofresources, future appraisal, realistic goal setting, and use of feedback and well-being (Chang &Sanna, 2001; Sohl & Moyer, 2009) the preventive coping is not (Sohl & Moyer, 2009).

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Experiencing positive emotions also provide individuals to utilize resources such as building newsocial bonds. Hambrick and McCord (2010) support this statement in their study, which examinesthe relationship between proactive, preventive coping styles, and personality. Results showedsignificantly positive correlation between agreeableness, extraversion, and proactive coping andthe significantly negative correlation between neuroticism and proactive coping but the results didnot indicate any significant relationship for preventive coping and between these factors.

These results imply that proactive coping individuals are less likely to experience negativeemotions compared to the preventive coping individuals and they are more open to seeking socialsupport from their environment since they are more extroverted and agreeable. These tendenciesin proactive coping may motivate people to construct interpersonal relations with other individualsmore easily compared to preventive coping because of the agreeableness and extraversioncharacteristics. Agreeableness is often expressed as an individual’s willingness toward pro-socialbehaviors and ability to get along with other people (Graziano & Eisenberg, 1997; McCrae & John,1992) and extraversion is defined as the tendency toward building social interaction and positiveeffect (Watson & Clark, 1997). The above-mentioned situations can also be explained by abroaden-build theory which states that positive emotions extend people’s mentality, enablethem to generate resources, however negative emotions limits one’s turn of mind (Fredrickson,2001). Guribye, Sandal, and Oppedal (2011) also observed that the experience of positive moodstates with proactive coping provides individuals the ability to establish more social supportiverelationships than preventive coping. In this regard, the experience of positive emotions maysupport the new social bonds discovery which can be helpful to an individual in building personalresources.

Findings above do imply that proactive coping individuals will experience fewer life stressors anddeal better when confronted with stressors compared to preventive coping individuals and in turn,they will experience less of the negative consequences of the demands on their lives such as lessburnout and they will experience more positive experiences just opposite of burnout like engage-ment. These terms can be named work attachments as positive for engagement and negative forburnout. Individuals attached positively will have more positive individual and organizationaloutcomes like job satisfaction, better job performance (Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, 2002), organiza-tional citizenship behaviors, but individuals attached negatively will not (Babakus, Yavas, & Ashill,2009).

2. Personal and organizational outcomes of copingThe job satisfaction, job performance, and organizational citizenship behavior captured the atten-tion of many researchers in terms of both their antecedents and dimensions. Goal orientation,especially proactive goal orientation as a motivational concept as it relates to goal setting (Parker,Bindl, & Strauss), may be considered to be one of the correlates of these organizational outcomes.

2.1. Job satisfactionJob satisfaction refers to a positive psychological and emotional condition appearing from theevaluation of one’s job and related job experiences (Locke, 1976). When features of individuals’ jobgo beyond their expectations they feel satisfied. Calvo-Salguero, Carrasco-González, and De Lecea(2010) also, defined job satisfaction as an attitude relating to the extent to which employees like ordislike their job. According to Mullins (1999) factors affecting job satisfaction are individual, social,cultural, organizational, and environmental.

Similarly, Bender, Donohue, and Heywood (2005) also explained that job satisfaction is influ-enced by a different factor within the job itself as well as by internal personal characteristics andmotivation (Pool, 1997). In addition to the effect of personal resources on job satisfaction, positiveemotions also have a direct effect on job satisfaction. Brockner and Higgins (2001) discovered thepositive influence of cheerful emotions on job satisfaction because positive emotions may enableindividuals to focus on the positive sides of their job and in turn result in more job satisfaction.

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Robbin, Odendaal, and Roodt (2003) also supported this finding in their research suggesting thatmore positive perceptions toward job will be an indicator of greater job satisfaction. From this pointof view, one can assume that proactive coping individuals are likely to be more satisfied with theirjobs compared to preventive coping individuals since they have a higher self-efficacy, see their jobsmore challenging (Schwarzer & Taubert, 2002) and associates with more positive emotion (Guribyeet al., 2011).

Therefore, hypothesis 1 states that proactive coping will be positively related to job satisfactionwhile preventive coping is negatively related to job satisfaction.

2.2. Job performanceIn addition to job attitudes, the assessment of employees’ job performance has also a critical andessential function for organizations because through this mechanism, the company assesses theworthiness of all its employees and identifies the employees who are its key performers and theemployees who need to be trained and motivated to perform better.

Defining, understanding and evaluating job performance has received an important attentionfrom researchers (e.g., Arvey & Murphy, 1998; Borman & Motowidlo, 1997). Borman and Motowidlomade a distinction between categorization for job performance in terms of task performance andcontextual performance. Task performance encompasses activities that are defined as part of thejob and make a contribution to the organization’s technical core directly or indirectly. Contextualperformance or organizational citizenship behavior, on the other hand, includes activities whichmake a contribution to organizational effectiveness in ways that could further the responsibilitiesthat exist within a particular job. Generally, these behaviors are performed voluntarily and are notwithin the formal job duties; however, indicate exemplary forms of performance that are desirableand beneficial for organizations (Podsakoff, Whiting, Podsakoff, & Blume, 2009).

Both individual and situational factors are related to job performance. For example, stress is oneof the factors affecting job performance. Nawaz et al. (2011) had conducted a research betweenthe occupational stress and the performance of employees and found a negative relationshipbetween them. Predispositional factors also have an impact on employees’ performance.According to Seibert, Crant, and Kraimer (1999), proactivity may provide better job performancesince proactive individuals prefer and create situations that increase the probability of high-levelperformance. Thompson (2005) also investigated the relationship between proactivity and jobperformance and suggested that proactive people show high job performance by developing socialnetworks that provide them the resources to show effective job performance.

Therefore, based on the findings above, effective coping skills like proactive coping can block oralleviate the negative effect of stress by providing opportunities to use personal and job resourcesand predict job performance. It also predicts higher job performance compared to preventivecoping because in proactive coping, individuals try to achieve higher goals but in preventive coping,individuals may have minimally accepted standards for performance (Schwarzer & Taubert, 2002).

Therefore, hypothesis 2 states that Proactive coping is positive, whereas preventive coping isnegatively related to task performance.

Although the associations between stressors, coping and in-role performance have been wellestablished (Gilboa, Shirom, Fried, & Cooper, 2008), extra-role behaviors such as organizationalcitizenship behavior (OCB) has been given less attention.

Different definitions and conceptualizations have been made for the OCB by the researchers.Organ defined OCB as “individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognizedby the formal reward system, and in the aggregate promotes the efficient and effective function-ing of the organization” (Organ, 1988, p. 4). Altruism, courtesy, conscientiousness, civic virtue, and

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sportsmanship are the five factors of the original OCB model (Organ, 1990). Alternatively, Spectorand Fox (2002, p. 270) define OCB as “individuals may make voluntary contributions that gobeyond specified task performance or the psychological contract with the employer”.

Practical implications and importance of OCB are explicit, although a variety of definitions andconceptualizing definitions has been made. Organ (1988) noted that OCB enhances organizationaleffectiveness by adding to resource transformations, innovativeness, and adaptability. Forinstance, helping co-workers result in decreased inter-group conflict and in turn enables managersto focus on more important issues (Matin, Jandaghi, & Ahmadi, 2010).

In addition to the influence of OCB on organizational outcomes and on individuals, there are alsosome factors influencing OCB. For example, aspects of work setting are influential on OCB, such asorganizational fairness (Tepper & Taylor, 2003). Moreover, some stressors have an impact on OCB.If stressors perceived as a hindrance by employees, they lead some negative emotions and these,in turn, reduce the likelihood of OCB performance; whereas positive emotions are associated withperforming prosocial and cooperative behaviors (Carlson, Charlin, & Miller, 1988).

Proactive concepts also have been identified in the literature on organizational citizenship, such astaking charge and change-oriented citizen. Proactive work behavior involves proactive goals to improvethe internal organizational environmentandproactiveproblemsolving (Parker,Williams,&Turner, 2006).

Organizational Citizenship behavior requires taking charge as well as to personal initiative (Frese,Garst, & Fay, 2007). Frese and Fay (2001) identified as important for personal initiative individuals’expectations that they control the situation and have an impact on the outcomes. Individuals withhigh control appraisals were proposed to maintain a strong sense of responsibility, to not give upeasily, searching for opportunities to act, to have high hopes for success, and to actively search forinformation. Furthermore, according to Lavelle (2010), employees’ tendency to engage in OCBdepends on the individuals’ need to improve their self-concept and achieve self-growth.

Therefore, hypothesis 3 states that proactive coping is positively related while preventive copingis negatively related to OCB.

2.3. Control variable: work experienceIt was suggested that demographic variables like tenure (job experience) might have an influenceon work outcomes. Studies also indicate that work experience of employees has an impact on theirwork attachment styles, job performance level, and attitudes toward their job (Levinson, Fetchkan,& Hohenshil, 1988; Mackoniene & Norvile, 2014; Martin & Schinke, 1998). Therefore, the total workexperience was taken as the control variable in this study.

3. Method

3.1. ParticipantsTwo hundred and fifteen employees voluntarily participated in the present study. Of the participants,114 were women (53%) and 101 were men (47%), and their age ranged from 22 to 54 (M = 31.60,SD = 6.67). The majority of the participants were university graduates (70.2%), and from graduateprograms (24.7%). All of the participants completed the questionnaires via the internet. Of the fullsample, 90 participants were first used for the pilot study. Among 90 participants, 51 were women(56.7%) and 39 were men (43.3%). The age range was between 23 and 54 (M = 29.63, SD = 5.87). Themajority of the participants had university degrees (70%), and graduate degrees (26.7%).

3.2. MeasuresThe questionnaire package started with an informed consent form. Participants also received a demo-graphic information formwhichwasprovidedon the last pageof the survey package. Themean scores ofscales were used for analyses. The scales used in the survey package are explained below.

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3.2.1. Proactive coping inventoryThe present study utilized the Proactive Coping Subscale and the Preventive Coping Subscalefrom the Proactive Coping Inventory, which was developed by Greenglass et al. (1999). Itemsof the two subscales were translated into Turkish by the translators so that the items couldhave a linguistic equivalent. The Preventive Coping Subscale has 10 items in the original form.A sample item is “I try to manage my money well in order to avoid being destitute in old age”.After the translation, one item was eliminated by the researcher since it was not proper forTurkish sample. The Proactive Coping Subscale has 14 items. A sample item is “I visualize mydreams and try to achieve them”. Both preventive coping and proactive coping were rated ona 5-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree; 5 = Strongly agree). A pilot study was conductedwith 90 participants and one item from Proactive Coping Subscale was eliminated due to itslow correlation with other items of the scale. The Cronbach alpha of internal consistency was.87 and .75 for preventive coping and proactive coping subscales, respectively. Additionally,the factorial validity of the new scale was established. The two-factor solution covered all therelevant items. Although the sample size was small, confirmatory factor analysis showed thattwo factor solutions had better fit indexes than the one-factor solution.

3.2.2. Job satisfaction scaleThree items from the job satisfaction subscale of Job Diagnostic Survey (Hackman & Oldham,1975) was used by Bilgiç (1999) to measure job satisfaction. An example item is “In general, Iam satisfied with my job.” In this study, participants were asked to indicate their degree ofagreement with the presented statements on a 5-point scale (1 = Strongly disagree,5 = Strongly agree). The Cronbach alpha of internal consistency was reported as .81 in thepresent study

3.2.3. Performance scaleThe Performance Scale was developed by Beffort and Hattrup (2003) and it has nine items. Thescale was translated into Turkish by Karakurum (2005). The items were rated on a 5-point Likertscale A sample item is “I perform my work with a high quality”. The scale aims to measure the self-rated job performance of the employees with nine items. The internal consistency of the scale wasreported as .92 in the present study.

3.2.4. Organizational citizenship behaviors scaleOrganizational Citizenship Behaviors Scale was developed by Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman, andFetter (1990). A sample item is “I help others who have heavy workloads”. The scale was translatedinto Turkish by Bayazıt, Aycan, Aksoy, Göncü, and Öztekin (2006) and it has 24 items and rated on a7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree). The Cronbach alpha of internalconsistency was reported as .74 in the present study.

3.3. ProcedureThe participation in the study was voluntary and all of the participants received a consentform providing info about the aim of the study. The questionnaire package included theinformed consent form, Proactive Coping Inventory, Professional Self-Esteem Scale,Performance Scale, Job Satisfaction Scale, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale.Firstly, a pilot study with 90 participants was conducted to test the psychometric propertiesof the translated version of Proactive Coping Inventory. Participants of the pilot studyreceived the whole questionnaire package, and they were included in the dataset of thepresent study. The two samples did not differ from each other significantly for the studyvariables and for the demographic variables (except for age and work experience), hence thetwo data sets were combined and used for the whole analysis. Data were collected via theinternet and snowball sampling was used to collect data. Before collecting the data, ethicalpermission was taken from the Ethical Committee of the Middle East Technical University.

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4. Results

4.1. Descriptive statistics and bivariate correlationsThe reliabilities (α), means (M), and standard deviations (SD) are presented in Table 1, and thecorrelations between study variables are presented in Table 2. The reliabilities are based on 215participants combined.

4.2. Hypothesis testingHypothesis 1 stated that proactive coping would be positively related to job satisfaction andpreventive coping would be negative. The hierarchical regression was performed as job satisfactionwas the dependent variable. In the first step, the work experience was entered as the controlvariable and the result was significant (R2 = .04, F(1,211) = 8.98, p < .005). Work experiencepredicted job satisfaction positively (β = .20, t = 3.00, p < .005). In the second step, proactivecoping was entered as the independent variable and the result was significant (ΔR2 = .19, F(2,210) = 31.64, p < .001). Proactive coping skills predicted job satisfaction positively after control-ling for the job experience (β = .44, t = 7.22, p < .001). However, preventive coping was not relatedwith job satisfaction. Therefore, hypothesis 1 was partially supported.

Hypothesis 2 states that proactive copingwas positively and preventive copingwas negatively relatedto task performance. The results showed that after controlling for job experience, proactive coping waspositively related to task performance (R2 = .50, F(2,210) = 106.34, p < .001) and proactive coping skillspredicted job performance positively (β = .70, t = 14.34, p < .001). However, preventive coping was notrelated to job performance. Therefore, there was a partial support for the above hypothesis.

Table 1. Reliabilities, means, standard deviations, and minimum and maximum values of studyvariables

Variable Reliabilities Mean SD Min. Max. Number ofitems

Age 31.61 6.7 22 54

Preventive .87 3.58 .57 1.78 5.00 9

Proactive .75 3.51 .39 2.62 4.38 13

Jobperformance

.81 3.76 .69 2.11 5.00 9

Jobsatisfaction

.74 3.23 .86 1.00 4.67 3

OCB .76 4.96 .47 3.38 6.08 24

Note: OCB: Organizational citizenship behavior

Table 2. The bivariate correlations among study variables

Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6

1. WE 1.00

2. Preventive .09 1.00

3. Proactive .12 .02 1.00

4. JP .13 .02 .71** 1.00

5. JS .20** −.06 .46** .52** 1.00

6. OCB .14* .03 .55** .64** .28** 1.00

Note: WE: Work experience; JP: Job performance; JS: Job satisfaction; OCB: Organizational citizenship behavior.*p < .05, **p < .01

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Hypothesis 3 states that proactive coping is positively related while preventive coping is nega-tively related to OCB. In the first step, the work experience was taken as the control variable; andthe result was significant (R2 = .02, F(1,211) = 3.92, p < .05). Work experience predicted OCBsignificantly (β = .14, t = 1.98, p < .05). In the second step, proactive coping was taken as theindependent variable and the result was significant (ΔR2 = .28, F (2,210) = 44.79, p < .001).Proactive coping predicted OCB positively (β = .53, t = 9.17, p < .001). However, preventive copingwas not related to OCB. Therefore, Hypothesis 3 also was partially supported.

5. DiscussionThe purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between coping strategiesand organizational outcomes.

5.1. Influences of coping strategies on Individual and organizational outcomesIt was suggested that while proactive coping would positively influence the individual and organiza-tional outcomes which are job satisfaction, job performance, and organizational citizenship behaviorpreventive coping would have a negative influence. Firstly, it was found that proactive copingpredicted all of the individual and organizational outcomes positively after controlling work experi-ence factor. The literature lacks the empirical data investigating these relationships, therefore it canbe asserted that this study will broaden the coping literature by indicating significant proactivecoping and organizational outcomes style relationship. Although there is a scarcity in the literature,the relation between proactive and preventive coping and organizational outcomes can beexplained from the perspective of Higgins’ (1997) regulatory focus theory which assumes thatindividual’s regulation of goals depends on either promotion focus, a regulatory state-focusing onadvancement, accomplishment, and aspirations, or prevention focus, a regulatory state focusing onprotection, safety, and avoiding negative outcomes. Comprehending the literature, proactive andpreventive coping concepts are based on the regulatory focus theory (Grant & Ashford, 2008), theformer can be referred to as promotion focus and the latter can be referred to prevention focus.

Proactive coping is likely to have a positive impact on job satisfaction because it is associatedwith positive emotions and mood states (Sohl & Moyer, 2009) and positive emotions may enhancegeneral feelings of job satisfaction (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). Although there are contradictoryfindings in the literature, the majority of the findings support the positive relationship betweenproactive coping and job satisfaction. While Mackoniene and Norvile (2014) found a negativelyweak relationship between job satisfaction and proactive coping, other studies indicated a sig-nificant positive relationship between job satisfaction and promotion focus which is a very similarconcept to proactive coping (Brief, Butcher, & Roberson, 1995; Lanaj, Chang, & Johnson, 2012).

Similarly, significant positive relationship between proactive coping and job performance whichis in line with expectation can be explained in a way that, proactive coping employees prefer andcreate situations that enhance the likelihood of high level of performance by setting morechallenging goals and taking purposeful actions for self-development (Schwarzer & Taubert,2002; Veresova & Mala, 2012). Hence, proactive individuals may designate higher performancestandards for themselves and strive to reach their ideal goal. Similar findings were found in thepromotion focus oriented individuals. Studies indicated that reaching or exceeding high-perfor-mance goals are meant for self-actualization and self-aspiration for the promotion focus employ-ees and they associate with more challenging goals to reach their ideal setting (Spiegel, Grant-Pillow, & Higgins, 2004; Wallace, Johnson, & Frazier, 2009).

Another possible factor explaining the reason why the proactive coping predict positive jobperformance can be its alleviating effect on the negative effect of stress. Knowing that stresshas a vitally negative impact on job performance (Nawaz et al., 2011), using proactive coping maybe very useful in blocking the negative influence of stress on job performance and may enableemployees to perform their job properly. Lastly, results showed a significantly positive relationshipbetween proactive coping and organizational citizenship behavior as it was expected. Studies

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investigating the relationship between promotion focus and OCB are also in line with this result(Rioux & Penner, 2001; Wallace et al., 2009). According to Lavelle (2010), employees may performOCB in order to gain rewards and achieve better career advancements. This idea is consistent withproactive coping because proactive coping individuals are motivated by the activities and tasks,enhancing their self-concept and offering them career advancement (Schwarzer & Taubert, 2002;Veresova & Mala, 2012). Experiencing positive emotions instead of negative ones may also explainthe reason behind proactive coping and OCB relationship. According to Johnson, Telentino,Rodopman, and Cho (2010), employees are more likely to perform OCB when they experiencepositive emotions. Because employees using proactive coping strategies are less likely to experi-ence negative emotions such as stress, worry and anxiety and more likely to experience cheerful-ness related emotions, they may perform OCB by going beyond from their regular responsibilities.

In addition to hypotheses expecting positive relationship between proactive coping and organiza-tional outcomes, other hypotheses suggested that preventive coping would affect outcomes of worknegatively (i.e. job satisfaction, job performance, and organizational citizenship behavior). There areno studies examining the relationship between preventive coping and these outcomes. Therefore,this study aimed to show these relationships; however, counter to expectations, preventive copingwas unrelated to organizational outcomes. Therefore, it can be inferred that the lack of significantassociation between preventive coping and these outcomes may be because of other factors whichmay influence the relationship between preventive coping and organizational outcomes. This may bedue to the fact that, preventive coping individuals’ performance and attitudes toward his/her joband/or profession may depend on how they frame the task (Higgins, 2000).

While proactive coping individuals frame the tasks in terms of goal achievement, preventive copingindividuals frameas goalmaintenance in order to avoid negative consequences. For instance, preventivecoping individuals may perceive an obligation to show at least standard performance in order to fulfillthe requirement in their job or may want to avoid the negative consequences of performing low jobperformance. In parallel to these reasons, they may perform OCB by engaging extra roles. Turkishemployees who are using preventive coping might adapt themselves in accordance with the conditionsand may have a fear of losing their job since the unemployment rate of Turkey is 10.5%, which isconsiderably high as of February 2014 according to the website of the Turkish Statistics Institute. In thisregard, the cost of losing the jobmay be perceived as very risky and in turn, they may try to show betterperformance and have a positive attitude toward their job and profession. Another possible explanationfor these insignificant results may be because of the type of jobs. The sample was collected fromindividuals with different jobs. However, if the data had been collected from the jobs requiring highvigilance, such as certain military jobs, security jobs or auditors, preventive coping would be predictingthese outcomes positively. Keith and Frese (2005) explain this situation in their study because theyobserved that preventive individuals are concerned with continually monitoring their circumstances forerrors. Therefore, it can be inferred that preventive coping individuals would be positively related tosafety performance which consists of employee activities contributing to workplace safety (Griffin &Neal, 2000) and studies found their positive association between safety performance and preventionfocus (Cesario, Higgins, & Scholer, 2008; Wallace, Little, & Shull, 2008). Future studies should, therefore,investigate some moderator factors explaining the preventive coping and the organizational outcomesrelationship and researchers should design their studies specifically to the jobs.

5.2. Contributions of the studyThis study provides several important contributions to the existing literature. First of all, it is thefirst time a study puts emphasis on the distinctive features of proactive and preventive coping bytreating the latter one as an antecedent of negative work attachment. These are the two separatesubscales of proactive coping inventory and some studies used two coping styles as a singleconcept of proactive coping, although Schwarzer and Taubert (2002) underlined the distinctivefeatures of both scales. Referring their unique definitions as they offered, this study contributed tothe existing literature empirically distinguished data for proactive and preventive coping.

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Second, this study showed that proactive coping is a better predictor of work attachment relatedoutcomes compared to preventive coping. Proactive coping has an influence on all work outcomes ofwork attachment styles, namely, job satisfaction, job performance, and OCB. Thirdly, this study showedfor the first time that in addition to regulatory focus (Higgins, 1997), regulatory coping strategies namelyproactive and preventive coping are also important. Lastly, the contribution of this study is that proactivecoping and preventive coping scales were translated into Turkish to provide Turkish literature two newscales with high psychometric properties. Therefore, these two scales can be used for future studies.

5.3. Limitations of the study and suggestions for future researchThis study has several limitations. First of all, the number of participants is relatively low incomparison with other studies in the literature. A higher number of participants can providemore accurate results. Therefore, futures studies should include adequate participants. Second,proactive and preventive coping scales were translated into Turkish and this study is the first totest their psychometric properties. Therefore, the results must be taken into considerationaccordingly because the reliabilities and validities are based only on this study.

Third, the study was completed with self-report questionnaires and it is not free from bias suchas social desirability. Future research should collect the data of outcome variables, especially jobperformance and OCB from supervisors because employees are more likely to give socially desir-able responses when the level of performance is questioned.

Fourth, it was suggested that preventive coping would predict the organizational outcomes;however, the results did not support this suggestion. These results may be culture-specific. Inthis regard, cultural dynamics can be added to future studies to reveal better understandingsuch as individualism, collectivism and uncertainty avoidance dimensions.

5.4. Implications for managers and organizationsThe results of the study present several implications for managers and organizations. First of all,the results showed that proactive coping has some positive outcomes for employees using it. Theincrease in using the proactive coping provides employees to have more positive attitudes towardtheir job and profession and to engage their work with a high motivation and decreases theprobability of experiencing disengagement toward the job. Briefly, proactive coping provides anincrement in work engagement and decreases burnout. Therefore, in terms of practical implica-tions for organizations and managerial perspective, proactive coping can be very important inwhich the demand for jobs is because of its alleviating effect on the negative impacts of stress andadditionally its role in increasing potential for growth and well-being. Therefore, managers shouldtake notice of its positive effects on employees and invest in the promotion of proactive copingstrategy in the organizations. As stress cannot be eliminated completely from work life, it isimportant to develop strategies not only alleviating the negative effect of stress but also increasingthe potential for growth and well-being as in the case of proactive coping. Therefore the presentstudy can be a good guide for managers who would like to help her/his subordinates for theirfeelings of stress and encourage them for self-promotion and growth.

FundingThe authors received no direct funding for this research.

Competing interestsThe authors declare no competing interest.

Author detailsÖnder Ersen1

E-mail: ersenonder@gmail.comReyhan Bilgiç1

E-mail: rey@metu.edu.tr1 Department of Psychology, Middle East TechnicalUniversity, Ankara, Turkey.

This manuscript is based on the first author’s master’sthesis. The partial analysis of the present manuscript waspresented at the EFPA Conference in Milan Italy, 2015.

Citation informationCite this article as: The effect of proactive and preventivecoping styles on personal and organizational outcomes:Be proactive if you want good outcomes, Önder Ersen &Reyhan Bilgiç, Cogent Psychology (2018), 5: 1492865.

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